Abstract A new and thorough examination of secondary electron (SE) yield as a function of primary energy ( E PE ) and atomic number Z for the 44 elements in the database is made. The principles of the semiempirical universal law for the SE yield are described and a template for Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is produced accordingly. Both universal curve fitting and MC simulation are made for the 44 elements. The resulted maximum SE yield δ m , corresponding primary energy $E_{\rm {PE}}^{\rm {m}}$ , SE excitation energy ε, and effective escape depth λ are tabulated and plotted as a function of atomic number Z. It is found that similarities exist in the profiles of ε and λ, δ m and $E_{\rm {PE}}^{\rm {m}}$ , and all of these parameters seem to have characteristics associated with atomic shell filling. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.